A Short Sunday Evening Reflection

 

In today's Gospel, Mark 6:30-44, we saw Christ miraculously multiply loaves and fish to feed 5000, a physical feast which points to a heavenly one. The elements of the miracle are telling.

5 loaves for the 5 books of the Law given by God to Moses on Sinai, the law of righteousness and love spoken to by the Prophets. And so there are two fish, for the twofold summary of the divine commandments, to love God and neighbor, as enunciated by Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets.

This Law is fulfilled in Christ, he is the love of God incarnate, righteousness itself, so the bread and fish ultimately represent him. Jesus, the bread of life, will miraculously feed the people of the new covenant with himself, he does so in the Eucharist. I found this helpful, from Benedict XVI:

The dual commandment to love God and neighbor encloses the two aspects of a sole dynamism of the heart and of life. Jesus thus achieves the ancient revelation, not in adding an unedited commandment, but by realizing in himself and in his own salvific action the living synthesis of the two great words of the old covenant: “You will love your God the Lord with all your heart …” and “you will love your neighbor as yourself” (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18).

In the Eucharist, we contemplate the sacrament of this living synthesis of the law: Christ gives us, with himself, the full realization of the love for God and the love for our brothers. And this love of his, he communicates to us when we are nourished by his Body and his Blood. This is when what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in today’s reading is achieved: “You broke with the worship of false gods and became the servants of the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). This conversion is the beginning of the path of holiness that the Christian is called to achieve in his own existence.

 

You broke with the worship of false gods and became servants of the living and true God. This conversion is the beginning of the path of holiness that the Christian is called to achieve in his own existence. Yes indeed.

God bless,

LSP

Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power

A few months ago a kind churchperson gave me his old Crossman 1389 Backpacker pump action air pistol. Handy bit of kit, I thought, as I loaded a .177 pellet into the chamber, pumped away and squeezed the trigger while aiming at a pecan tree. Disaster, the pellet didn't fire, neither did the next one, or the one after that, so I put the pistol away.

Until today and a new tin of pellets. Guess what, the pistol performed flawlessly, shooting through an old plastic milk container with unerring power and accuracy.

Handy addition to the backyard range.

In other news, I preached on the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, focusing on the symbolism of the loaves. 5 loaves for the Pentateuch, showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law; and as Elisha multiplied 20 loaves to feed 100, Christ does the same but by orders of magnitude greater. He is the fulfillment of Prophecy. It stands to reason, then, that he multiplies two fish, expressing his twofold nature and the people who will benefit from the heavenly nourishment that he offers. Both Jews and Gentiles fall within the grace of the New Covenant, grace that is nothing less than Our Lord himself.

Where do we find this? In the Eucharist, as typified by the miracle.

I went on like that in several 10th Seconds of Forever, at the end of which my MC, who has forgotten more about riding than I will ever know, said, "That wasn't very good." 

Rebuked!

LSP

Have a Blessed Sunday

golden void

Tried to get as much riding in as possible before flying off to the hopefully far cooler North. This means getting up earl and, on Saturday, driving to Miltdown Arabians with the sun at my back. Beautiful, there was even some rain, which was a godsend. 

Had a right workout, 'round poles and barrels at a canter/hand gallop, Western style. Total enjoyment and a good change to put some different horses through their paces.

ridiculous

Apart from horses, there was an interesting Gospel text this morning, in the feeding of the 5000, which serves as a type of the Eucharist. But why 5 loaves and 2 fish? 5 signifies the Law (5 books of the Pentateuch), which is fulfilled and sanctified by the twofold nature of Christ who is "true God and true man". The spiritual sustenance of this renewed Law is Christ Himself, who states "I am the bread of life", and is the acrostic in Greek for fish (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior). 

He will be the nourishment of the faithful whose number is 5000; as we are reminded in Acts, "The number of those who believed were 5000." These are the multitude of the new Law and constitute a new Israel, signified by the 12 baskets of food left over - fed by none other than Our Lord.

When I was a child, Rev. Ronnie Loyd, a Welshman, taught us that the real miracle and the spiritual meaning of the text, was that Jesus persuaded the 5000 to share their lunches, making it the "miracle of the bag lunches". 

hippys

Not dissimilar, I suppose, to a hippy "be-in" but without the thieving and general knavishness. I mentioned this interpretation to the congregation and denounced it trenchantly as, "Rubbish!"

God bless you all, not least in the Sacrament of the Altar.

Canada tomorrow.

LSP